USTheater is devoted to plays, operas, and performances, American and international, performed and published in the United States. We also are open to new plays by playwrights.
All materials are copyrighted as noted. The blog is edited and much of it written by Douglas Messerli

The
gambling hero of Guys and Dolls, Sky
Masterson’s, major song, “Luck Be a Lady,” appears quite late in the musical,
and even then is sung in the bowels of New York City’s sewers. One might never
have imagined that such a rousing prayer to the heavens sung so gloriously at
such low depths, both psychically and spiritually. Yet Sky’s bet, matched by
almost all of these low-denizen dice-tossers, strangely enough, is primarily an
attempt to save their souls, or, at least, to pretend to save their souls by
requiring them to attend a spiritual gathering at his would-be lover’s Sergeant
Sarah Brown’s Save-a-Soul Mission, a venture that may save her job and redeem
Sky’s apparent deception.

It is hard to imagine so much “evil”
behavior devoted to such absolute “goodness,” but then that’s the true delight
of Frank Loesser’s impossible-to-forget song.

Sky sings not to the gods, but the Lady
Luck herself, the goddess to whom he has spent most of his life bowing. This
goddess is a lady—or in the lingo of his world, a dame—but of course that “dame,”
this time around, psychologically speaking, is a stand-in for a preacher woman,
which makes the song even more fun. In the hell of his world (a sewer lit up in
garish greens, blues, reds, and purples) he is unconsciously praying to a high
authority, human love itself, and in a manner that is strangely enough not very
different than a prayer to a deity; after all, the man has spent many years of
his life reading the Gideon Bible in cheap hotels.

They
call you Lady Luck.

But
there is room for doubt

At
times you have a very unladylike way of running out

You're
this a date with me

The
pickings have been lush

And
yet before this evening is over you might give me the brush

You
might forget your manners

You
might refuse to stay and so the best that I can do is pray.

A
bit like a jealous lover, his “lucky protector” may behave badly, may leave him
for other men, or, even more sexually suggestive, blow on their dice.

A
lady doesn't leave her escort

It
isn't fair, it isn't nice

A
lady doesn't wander all over the room

And
blow on some other guy's dice.

So
let's keep the party polite

Never
get out of my sight

Stick
with me baby, I'm the fellow you came in with

Luck
be a lady

Luck
be a lady

Luck
be a lady tonight.

The macho terms of this song demand that
his “lady friend” remain loyal to him, no matter what he does. But in his song
of prayer, Sky also reveals that he attends to be loyal to his lover, Sarah
Brown, a relationship later consummated in a true Broadway marriage. That Lady
Luck does remain loyal to him is nearly a miracle, but then, that’s what this
musical is entirely about: a series of miraculous transformations that occur in
the midst of selfishly bad behavior. Nearly everyone in this marvelously joyful
work gets converted in one way or another. Even mobsters join in singing “Hallelujah,”
particularly when Nicely Nicely perceives the errors of his ways in another of
my favorite songs from the work, “Sit Down You’re Rocking the Boat.”

The original Broadway Sky Masterson,
Robert Alda, beautifully sings this ballad of sinful love in a full-voiced
rendition that reiterates the macho elements of a song in which a full male
chorus joins him. Maybe these underground men may not be so sexually desperate
as the more homoerotic male chant of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s “There Is
Nothing Like a Dame,” but the demanding chants of this song clearly do hint at
something similar, even if the “coming out” of which it speaks, is something
closer to “moving up” and “going straight.”

Stick
here, baby, stick here, baby.

Stick
with me, baby, I'm the fellow you came in with

Luck
be a lady

Luck
be a lady

Luck
be a lady tonight.

Coming
out, coming out, coming out

Right!

Similarly, Frank Sinatra regularly sang
this paean to love in a more authoritative, jazzier manner; Sinatra, it has
been reported, was more than little disappointed that he was tapped to play
Nathan Detroit in the movie version instead of more appealing Sky. And singing
this song was clearly his way of taking over the role from Brando.

In the 1992 Broadway revival, which I saw,
Peter Gallagher sang it also quite beautifully and with a zest that the song
seems to demand.

Yet, the quieter-voiced, almost shyly sung
Marlon Brando movie version, is my very favorite. Brando sings it almost with a
reverent, boyish infatuation that makes you truly believe in his adoration not
only with “luck,” but his luck in having found the highly religious Sarah
Brown. Now he truly may have someone with whom he can discuss the fine
differences between Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego. And after all, isn’t one of
Damon Runyon’s points that every marriage is a kind of gamble. Despite what may
seem as an utterly odd pairing, they’re obviously perfect for one another,
which this song makes apparent.